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The London mom of two was trying to eke out a living designing clothing out of her apartment when she joined the organization’s Bridges out of Poverty-Circles workshop — a program run by mentors who guide those who want to break the cycle of poverty and secure sustainable employment.

DeYoung had been going to the workshops every week for a year when the co-ordinator put her in touch with CEO Michelle Quintyn.

She says last year she did her very first clothing collection for spring and summer, selling it out of a pop-up store in downtown London.

When I met DeYoung last week while touring Goodwill’s Centre for Social Enterprise and the Environment, she was proud to show off her fall/winter collection, which will be released in September.

“Goodwill has incubated my business,” she said.

Goodwill Industries, Ontario Great Lakes is most certainly much more than a series of thrift stores.

As Quintyn explained during a two-and-a-half-hour interview and tour, when she took over 10 years ago her mission was to create a social enterprise that integrated community stores carrying donated goods and other newly created businesses in the recycling, commercial, and food and hospitality sectors with on-the-job training.

Quintyn says they’ve been able to take the organization from 150 to nearly 600 employees. Last year, they brought in $23 million in revenue, 87% of it from social enterprises, the remainder from government grants.

“We’re about getting people out of the social safety net into jobs,” she said over a delicious turkey and cheese salad made in Edgar and Joe’s cafe, a money-making venture that opened three years ago on the first floor of the bright and airy five-year-old Goodwill main office building.

That cafe alone trains 25 people at any one time and saw 66,000 customers last year. A banquet facility, which seats up to 250 people and is located on the building’s third floor, hosts every annual general meetings in the non-profit sector, says Quintyn.

The building also houses a Career Centre, a community store and donation drop-off, ample parking, seven classrooms, and the corporate offices.

“Our mission is about lifting people up, building their potential and getting them jobs,” she says.

I wanted very much to meet Quintyn in person and see her operation after she announced late last month that her organization intends to resurrect Goodwill out of the ashes left behind by former Goodwill Industries of Toronto, Eastern, Central and Northern Ontario (TECNO) CEO Keiko Nakamura.

After shutting shop on Jan. 18, the embattled CEO finally pulled the plug on Goodwill TECNO when she declared bankruptcy on Feb. 29. Some 530 employees lost their jobs.

If Nakamura’s organization can be likened to a 1971 Pinto (which often erupted in flames during rear-end collisions), Quintyn’s is a Toyota Prius (environmentally conscious, efficient and with the times).

Quintyn makes it clear that she will be taking the same integrated social enterprise model to any stores or new businesses she creates in the GTA or beyond — and that it is not in their interest to use any of the old Goodwill TECNO facilities.

The plan is to do some capital investment, she says, leveraging the $19 million in net assets held by Goodwill Ontario Great Lakes.

She says they’re currently doing “high-level market analysis” and “intensive site selection work” in Peel, Dufferin, York and Toronto.

Quintyn adds that their “door is open” to anyone who applies from Goodwill TECNO, but that they probably won’t open their first community store until the first quarter of 2017. It could be two to three years before they get back to the other communities, she says, noting they’d like to create the jobs lost within the first five years of their revitalization efforts.

I asked her how she intends to restore Goodwill’s reputation in the GTA.

Quintyn says they didn’t have the best reputation in London either 10 years ago.

She says a strong board and credible leadership is “absolutely essential” along with carrying out each step of the expansion in a “celebratory way” — not to mention making “darn sure” each phase is successful before expanding further.

THE DEMISE OF GOODWILL INDUSTRIES OF TORONTO, EASTERN, CENTRAL AND NORTHERN ONTARIO (TECNO)

Jan. 18: Goodwill CEO Keiko Nakamura announces to media she’s been forced to shut down 16 Goodwill stores, 10 donation centres and two offices managed by her team due to cash flow crisis. Some 530 employees left out in the cold.

First week of February: Sun reveals that in addition to the $4 million in provincial grants Goodwill got in 2015, Goodwill accessed money from the Ontario Trillium Foundation and the George Cedric Metcalf Foundation.